Lankford Love

Don't you love how Randi and I dress our baby girls in matching outfits? I'm not sure which is cuter - the fact that they match or McKinley's teal converses. I want them. For Lil. And maybe me too.

Brendon is on a business trip until Wednesday. He's been gone less than 48 hours. But I think Lilleigh detects his disappearance and doesn't like it. Here's the play by play of our weekend thus far. Both today and yesterday she decided to take naps half the length of her normal naps. Personally, I'm was fine with it. But that means she's more likely to be cranky. Not okay. Despite her short naps, Lilleigh was okay yesterday. So I decided to brave it and take her with me to our Young Couples cook out for the first hour (6-7 PM - nothing crazy). She was happy in the car. Great. But the moment we walked in the door, she started crying. And each time someone greeted her, she burst into tears... starting with the "oooooh" and {enter the loud cry}. Lovely. I stayed long enough to eat. I had come all that way, might as well. Fun times. Then bath time went terribly awry this evening. I've heard mommas talk about their babies making little "floaties...

I've been stuck at 8 lbs for awhile now. And lately I've been discouraged. It seems I'll have a spurt of weight loss and then a lull. I'm tired of the lull. But good news, my friends! I just bought shorts at Target yesterday - and they are two sizes smaller than a pair I bought right after having Lil! So I braved the scale...   I'm down to 5 pounds!!!   Wahoo!!

I have probably mentioned before that our neighborhood is baby central. Not kidding there were at least 11 babies born within this past school year. Most of those were firstborns. It's seriously nuts! It's been so fun to live in a neighborhood with lots of young families. We have neighborhood play dates and play groups, which is a huge ministry opportunity. I'll blog more about that later. But I just love knowing the other families in the neighborhood and recognizing a friendly face when I push the stroller down the street. There are so many sweet neighbors! Lots of stay-at-home (and equally as many working) mommas. And lots of sweet babies and kiddos. One of my neighbors is actually an old sorority sister of mine too. (I sound like an old lady... hmm... "young sorority sister" sound better?) Anyways she and I have been swapping babies! Melissa had her son Braden just 6 weeks after I had Lilleigh. While that makes a big different developmentally for the moment...

This past weekend, Brendon's mom, Grammy, came for a visit! She actually stayed at the Four Seasons Las Colinas (totally worth checking out if you haven't!) for a couple nights. This was such a treat because we were able to go hang out there and swim! Lil liked Grammy's hot pink hat. Drinking water like a big girl. She actually tries to grab our cups, straws, food, etc ALL the time! So if I'm drinking water or milk, I'll give her a sip. Funny because she normally looks at me like I'm crazy afterwards! But she really just loved the water this time! Two little cuties! Haha. Lil was loving sucking the juice out of the cuties. She actually sucked too hard and sucked the whole slice from my fingers into her mouth! Ay!! Luckily Mommy grabbed it quickly before she should choke. The lesson? Hold on tight! Daddy and Lilleigh playing! Do you see her teeth?? Yes, that's right - plural. Tooth #2 broke through this weekend! Then on Sa...

Confused on who McKinley is? The short answer - She's Lil's BFF. Okay really - she's Randi's baby. And Randi is one of my best friends, so therefore, McKinley and Lilleigh must be best friends. Got it? Good. And yes, we know - we are so blessed to get to raise our daughters together!! God knew! Just to jog your memory - One year ago I blogged about her birth . Crazy how time flies by! Now she's ONE! We celebrated with a swimming party! Matt and Randi could only get their neighborhood pool from 6-8 PM Friday night, which is definitely when Lil wants to be going to bed, but she was a trooper! No fussy babies here. Mommy and Baby BFFs! I think Lilleigh was jealous of McKinley's birthday hat. So Aunt Randi gave Lilleigh a birthday hat also. Daddy gave Lilleigh a piece of watermelon to try. She LOOOVED it! I think they went through several slices of watermelon actually! Singing happy birthday! McKinley seemed kinda frightened by the w...

Lil has turned into a tummy sleeper! She loves rolling from her back to her tummy! And she sleeps well on her tummy. This is wonderful, but the thing is I can't get her to roll from tummy to back for the life of me! Really. I prop her arms under her, and occasionally she'll roll to her back - with that extra help. She's been rolling from back to tummy since about four months. Until recently though, she'd rarely let herself get all the way onto her tummy. She's roll until she was aaaalmost there and then roll on to her back. Smart baby! The first few nights that she made it onto her tummy, I'd look on our video monitor and see her sleeping soundly. (Surely it was an accident that she ended up that way, right?) Then about an hour or so later, she'd wake up crying because she couldn't roll back. Thankfully though her tummy panicking has stopped. Though she can't roll back over, being on her tummy no longer scares her, and she's comfortable. That...

...Well, not really "paying" off, since we didn't pay for them. My friend Alina invited us to do lessons with her and some friends in her backyard. Alina's mom used to work as a swim instructor, and now that Alina has a baby, her mom offered to teach a class for Alina and her friends! Pretty sweet set up, right? We are thankful to Alina and her mom Kristina for inviting us to be a part of it! Here are several videos we took today. If you don't have time - or patience - to watch them all, just watch the first and last videos. (Since this is a family blog, grandparents, etc read this and will want to see all four I'm sure! Friends, no pressure!) The first is just a cool angle because it's under water. The last one is the one where Lilleigh turns on her own in the water! Pretty neat! Commentary on video 4: Even though it appears that the instructor turned Lil, actually Lilleigh turned on her own, as Kristina was reaching for her. Pretty cool! "...

Happy half birthday to you! Happy half birthday to you! Happy half birthday, sweet Lilleigh! Happy half birthday to you! Sweet Lil, You are now six months old! My time has flown! You have gotten so big. You are no longer my little newborn, but a baby! I took these cute photos of you on your half birthday.   Oooh a sticker I crunch with my fingers. You love the toy I got you at a garage sale last weekend. Here are things that define you at six months: You can sit up on your own! I put the boppy behind you still most of the time because you do fall after awhile. But each day you are getting stronger! Really. About a week and a half ago you decided to sit on your own, no hands on part of Mommy.  You love to laugh! You laugh when Mommy gives you lots of kisses and throws you up in the air. The saying around here is "Everything's funnier when Momma does it." For whatever reason, you laugh and laugh when I give you kisses or blow raspberries on your tummy,...

Pappy (aka my dad) came to visit this weekend! The occasion was Lil's half birthday! (Six month photos to come.) We had a great time with him, going to Costco, BJ's Brewery, garage sales, and Tin Star! And of course, we all enjoyed sitting out and watching the chickens. ...I'm telling you, there's so entertaining! Here are some great photos of Lil with her Pappy.

I need your help. I bought one of those awesome Canvas on Demand Groupons ... actually this is my second one to buy. The first canvas turned out awesome by the way! Anyway, with this second one, I need to choose a photo to have printed on it. Here are the contestants...  One. Two. Three. Four. Which one do you think we should turn into a 16x20 photo canvas?

Here's just a brief update for ya! It's almost Lil's half birthday , so I'll save our more detailed update for then! Lil cut her first tooth! But she doesn't really like showing me - or anyone for that matter - so no photos. Sorry. There's not a whole lot to see yet anyway! But my prayer is that Lil doesn't bite me! I plan to keep nursing until she's at least a year. Prayers welcome. We are having some separation anxiety issues here! It's really hit or miss. Sometimes when I leave Lil she cries briefly and then is fine. Other times she cries non-stop until either a) she cries herself to sleep or b) I return. As for the chickens, no eggs yet. Three aren't mature enough. We don't know anything about the fourth. But when it's above 100 degrees every day, we aren't really counting on eggs for awhile. If you haven't already seen, I'm giving away a Jeep Liberty Sport X stroller over at Thankfully Thrifty! If you wanna win, d...

As I was cleaning up the kitchen this morning, I was reminded of an incident that happened over three years ago, when we were still living in our apartment. I'm not sure what even reminded me of this event, but I feel inclined to share it with you, which basically means I feel that the Lord wants me to share this story with you. Hopefully it'll will strike a cord with at least one of you out there. It was probably 8 o'clock one evening. And it was winter, so it was dark. Hubby and I were driving home from somewhere. There was a community of houses and town homes next to several apartment complexes, our complex being one of them. We often drove through a neighborhood to get to our apartment. This particular night as we were driving, we noticed an elderly woman (at least in her late 80's) sitting on the curb. It looked as if she had fallen. So we pulled over. My heart was pounding. Of course, it's the right thing to pull over to help this woman, but we are also ve...

This little chicken has a name! Thanks to the unknowing collaboration of Elizabeth Daines and Brendon's boss's wife Jackie, chicky has a name! Please meet Clara Belle ! What I didn't mention is that there's a prize for the winners! ...Mainly because we just decided that there should be a prize! What is it you ask? Homemade soap, of course! Because hubby has been experimenting with making his own soap. Al naturale. We're so country.